MEMO
by OoCupOfNoodleoO
Summary: The flowers bloom and unroll in forms of life and luscious desire. The seasons pass in vibrant streams of burning life. And our madness grows, like flowers it blooms, like salt it stings, like death it burns and kills and taints. But we love it all the same for the madness is all to consuming, slowly, slowly...
1. 001- January

**January**

 **001**

* * *

 ** _Slowly, slowly the snow falls, slowly slowly the ice grows, slowly slowly all hell breaks loose..._**

* * *

He is here for the tea.

He will only ever be here for the tea, and as he watches the Asian man in the midst of the winter glow drink from a porcelain cup, he reminds himself that he to is only here for the tea—the delicacy. Not in any means his company or for the warmth another body brings. Because even though they are friends, they only agree on brief things—such as tea.

The man in front of him looks placid- lucid, and Arthur knows that he is already to deep in his own thoughts to listen to his own. Because men are selfish beings, he thinks to himself, indulgent in his own secret thoughts. Because men tell lies, and hold secrets, he adds in his mind.

They sit together, the glare of the winter breathtaking and yet hauntingly beautiful as they watch the snowstorm blow away any possible dust on the ground. Every particle and flake ushers the wind to continue so they do not helplessly fall onto the ground and melt in vain. It is disgusting, Yao thinks to himself. Dying in so much vain, he adds later on as the snow touches the floor and the earths temperature melt the weak layers of white.

They sit within a small café, and the aroma of cocoa weaves between the silence and the stillness. It is only them that sit there completely still and unmoving as other men and woman laugh and dine. They are not part of the fun today. No… never again.

"Do you remember why we are here?" Yao asks, voice barely a whisper and Arthur thinks it is disgusting and repulsing, because it shows weakness. But that is fine, he thinks once again, because he is willing to compensate for the others shortcomings.

"Do not waste my time with such questions." He responds slowly, and he doesn't know why, but he is agitated and mad and frustrated all at once so his mind is unclear like the snow that once again starts to dance another rhythm.

 _Frustrating_.

"Do you say that because you indeed, don't know?" Yao answers louder this time. He turns his head facing him directly so the blond could see the tired expression. And there is something so sad and maddening to the silently resigned eyes. A method to the beauty of silence falls on them once again. Arthur opens his mouth, lips dry and parched because he doesn't know what to say. And even though he doesn't know what to say—what the _right_ thing to say is, he finds an answer anyway.

"What of it?" He say's, because he really doesn't know. Because through the cold streets it only suddenly occurred to him like an idea that came to late for the party. "And what about you?" He asks cautiously. He is stepping on a eggshells and he is dancing between wires as he asks, but his hand is suddenly aggravated so he tends to that first.

"I…know why we are here." The older man says hesitantly. He shifts his position, straightening his posture even though his head remains tilted to the side. His locks fall to the side, overlapping black against white skin.

In reality he does not know, but he blames it on the snow outside. Blaming is easy and fun and even though it is wrong he could care less.

"Right, of course." Arthur responds stiffly, he does not believe the man but he chooses to. The man believes his words, and he believes his. He, Arthur, also blames it on the snow because why else would they drink expensive tea when they should be searching for jobs and careers?

He doesn't know the answer. _He forgot._

That was the problem. He keeps on forgetting.

Now he remembers.

"The Doctor is lying I tell you." He adds quickly, grasping onto the concept before he forgets it again. It is difficult and he struggles in vain. Much like the snow, Yao thinks with a hint of a smug smile.

"Please do not remind me," Yao jokes, because he knows he needs to be reminded or else he forgets.

"—And do not start that again, Arthur."

"What was that blasted concept? Amnesia? Alzheimers? Dementia? Nonsense!" The blond shakes his head, he is more mad then frustrated now. The wind must sympathize with him because it whips snow and ice and hail. It showers his anger on the world because that is only fair he reminds himself. He should not be suffering, he thinks.

"Arthur…"

"Rubbish! _Pure_ rubbish I tell you my dear Yao! All of it just rubbish!"

"Arthu-"

"I simply have a bad memory. And you to. How inconceivable! Them bloody dolts…"

"Arthur!"

He stops. Everyone stops. They all stop. And in that moment between a frozen time and a seamless hybrid of seconds, they exchange a meaningful stare. And then time moves and they sit down, and they are silent, and they are no longer friends even though they still do not bother to leave. It's the tea that makes them want to stay they reassure themselves even when they forget seconds later.

They remain silent.

This is not a dream, they remind themselves.

You will not wake up, they remind themselves.

You will not forget, they remind themselves.

And they chant those phrases over and over again, burning it into there diminishing memory. And they pray to _something—anything_ in hopes of remembering because time loses all meaning when you cannot remember anything. So they sit together, tea cold, fingers burning hot.

It is January and they have months time left.

They do not want to believe anything that happens as of right now.

They do not believe this is happening.

And by pure coincidence they forget the rest and remember only that.

 _ **They do not believe they are forgetting.**_

* * *

 _"How fast?_

 _"Slowly."_


	2. 002- February

**February**

 **002**

 _Ice forms slowly, slowly, drifting, drifting, a storm of denial and pride…_

It is on Valentines day when they meet Alfred and Ivan. But they meet in different ways—in strange ways. In hospitals and clinics.

They are all diagnosed with the same thing. As if unfairness has decided to side with them, two other men have been condemned to the fate of having memory loss. It is strange as it is lovely and like a growing seed of destruction and mayhem they bond over there mutual pain and the dimmed memories they can briefly remember. But the thought recycles like a deadly virus attacking from touch and breath. The thought grows and they remember it because it is the only thing that makes remembering less painful.

They are not forgetting. They are fine.

And they tell themselves that because they choose to believe it. They do believe it. They do.

It is less cold and there are days with a striking warmth although through and through the chills of there aching bones remain. They walk together, perhaps in a straight line if not for the strange differences in height, and they sit together in a small booth that fits four.

"We are not losing our memories." Arthur explains to a hungry American. The American is easily repelled and repulsed and his eyes dilate in the heavy income of sucrose and salt. It is amusing, Arthur thinks and he tries to remember the way the younger man holds his knifes and forks. Because it is unique and irreplaceable, he repeats in his brain. Irreplaceable.

"I hear you, Artie, mhm mhm…" Alfred swallow's coffee and perhaps five teaspoons of sugar and he does not mind. Memory loss is the least of his problems when money is low, and the rich Russian is paying the bill. And perhaps deep down he is the person who is convincing himself the most because Yao could only see a hungry man despite the tainted memory.

A strange feeling erupts. Jealousy. It fuels him enough for him to look away. He is not as free spirited and he is not as carefree. His chest hollows. Maybe that is where he went wrong.

"Perhaps, da…I do not understand these things." Ivan responds bitterly and thoughtlessly. He sits closer to the Asian and quite honestly, he prefers the Oriental male compared to the witty and charming Britain. There is a method and a procedure in liking people. He knows this because he likes Yao and he doesn't like Alfred. He prefers Arthur and he still dislikes Alfred. He likes Yao, he thinks, because Yao is warm and Yao-Yao is cold. To him, the other is a mixture of colours and shades. He likes mutations—he likes _hybrids_ of special kinds.

He likes different things.

"Arthur, aiya…we have not yet forgotten anything yet, do not fret over such things so soon." Yao says calmly, he chooses not to believe in the sickening development that has not yet crossed his mind. He is not ready for the struggle and he has not yet struggled. For that he is glad.

Arthur feels the same. And that is one of the few things the two agree on other then tea. He is not forgetting, and when he gets back home he writes that over and over again in hopes of truly not... forgetting. Because sometimes the thought leaves him and he needs to search everything to find it again. Because sometimes he remembers something else such as; I am forgetting, and it hurts his mind all the same.

The sound of Alfred eating is all that remains. And the silence is comforting although thoughts and secrets and hope and despair are all muddled together. Ivan pays the bill easily and like they were strangers they walk out, not knowing exactly where they're going.

Perhaps they forget each other but that is not today.

No, not today, and they smile because when they reach their homes of different sizes, they still remember each other's names and each other's smiles. It is in every sense a miracle and they bask in the glory of a day well remembered.

So the lie grows and deepens, they are not forgetting, they are not forgetting…and they remember it, because they are optimistic, they tell themselves despite the sharpness of the unraveling truth. Because they are right, and they can't be wrong.

They are not wrong.

It is the mental persuasion that works much faster then logic and in that moment they believe it. They believe the lies and ignore the prescriptions and the pills and the torn parchment.

They all smile in different times at different places, ignorant, arrogant, _similar_ smiles.

 _Yes, how could they be forgetting?_

Later on in the month there is more snow and it falls, and it hardens. Like Arthur, Alfred thinks, there is layers to the personality. There is discovery and secret places he still has yet to dwell in. There is so much to be found and used within green because now he can manage with tea and with whatever food Arthur claims as his own. He manages and slowly, slowly, he understands the meaning between having time and using it wisely.

He drinks from a hot cup of coffee, his sixth because the February night leaves him breathless in insomnia. He drinks in the night sky, the scent of the cold and the emptiness of shadows and phantoms. He drinks and basks in a day's glory, the nights vanity's, life's beautiful way of tempting him.

And he remembers green eyes, and the rare smile. He remembers and draws—scribbles portraits, and he writes and dreams of that, just that smile. It is pure and it is lovely within the memory loss and the window that overlooks a brick wall. But in his dreams that smile is directed towards _him_ , inviting him to whatever comes next. And he awaits the journey because he likes adventure. He likes discovery.

He sips once again, feeling warm either from the caffeine or the sweet thoughts, and he closes his eyes.

The insomnia does not leave him, but alas he has something to think about.

 _The snow falls, deeper the lie grows, deeper the stem of evil spreads. Like a disease, slowly, slowly, deeper, deeper, into the abyss…_


	3. 003- March

**March**

 **003**

* * *

Slowly, slowly, not _too_ slowly, do the flowers grow, do the tears shed, do the colour spread…and yet we remain gray…

* * *

It is a disease. They remember being told that, and they remember being told that it is progressive. Baby steps that creak to slowly and to tediously for it to be taken seriously.

That is until you forget.

And only now the sickening reality starts to spread and there are no more days of fun and laughter but writing, and journals, and for Yao, planning. Because now he can't live without writing down everything—documenting his life prior to its existence. Because when he remembers Alfred's carefree smile he doesn't understand _how_ and it ridges him and over fuels him with confusion and contempt. How can you smile like it's funny? How can you smile at all? And a strange thought occurs to him as he writes, perhaps he forgot his own sickening doom? And if that is the case, then Yao can only watch from afar and pity. He's pitied his entire life, after all.

He stares outside his window, and only faintly does he see the rain drops that fly and buzz past him. He doesn't know what day it is despite the warmer weather. He re-reads the names and re-reads the news but he can't seem to remember even when he can still remember how to count numbers in both his native _and_ second language. It's the numbers and the logic of the shapes that sooth him and ground him to this harsh reality.

But even _that_ is slipping, and it starts small because suddenly he realizes that he doesn't know the national flower of China and what it's called in Chinese despite him being a patriot at heart. No, instead they are streams of vibrant pink and red, familiar and taunting, intoxicating and subtle in the way they make his heart scream and throb in painful pounds of grief.

And it hurts more then it intends to, but that is when you convince yourself you are getting worse. And he doesn't want to believe that it is 'progressive' and that sooner or later it will develop into something that is no longer adaptable to parchment paper and pen.

He grimaces, he needs _control_ over his life, and he feels as if his memory is getting torn into bits and re- sewn back in odd timelines coloured in only timely shades. He feels as if he has no authority over his own life and perhaps that is what upsets him the most. But even though he tries, he can't remember exactly _why_ —that upsets him to.

Ahhh the irony.

The flowers bloom and all his pretty camellias are now more then buds of life, but an essence of how time is passing without him noticing. He is blind in denial and even though his heart hurts and the blossoms of spring are arriving, he only knows that time is passing far quicker then he can remember—or chooses to accept.

Soon it will be summer, and then there will come fall, he thinks and he grimaces despite the tears welling up in his eyes. Soon will he forget his name? Will he forget how to eat? How to talk? But all of that ranks so low when Ivan calls with worries of his own, and he picks up with ginger hesitation.

"Are you crying, my little Yao-Yao?" Ivan asks, as soon as he hears the dying sorrow that crosses through heart and not mechanical connection. Yao only ushers a small smile that looks grim against his tears. He is forgetting he thinks, and now he can remember only that. He is forgetting and soon he will forget Ivan. Will he forget Ivan? His beautiful sunflower? His light and warmth when all he harbours is the still cold. The reality of it all sends his body trembling although even _Ivan_ does not notice.

"I am simply thinking about the vastness of time, Yiwan, simply time…" he says again, and he hears the Russian whisper sweet nothings into the intercom. They are friends he thinks, and honestly, he does not mind if they are _more_ because he likes the gentleness and the frailty of the voice that soothes him and promises him nothing.

And as he writes down his own thoughts he can't help but write about love and connections and time as if he _knows_ them and that time is the only thing connecting the two lost characters together.

The other end is silent but there is breathing, and as Yao writes stories and pages of sadness that he is to scared to express in clarity, the breathing helps because it reminds himself of his own and how he's still alive. And so, day by day Ivan calls, and he answers, and he writes, and he watches his beautiful flowers blossom slowly, never failing to impress him in there intoxicating beauty.

But he watches the leaves and the trees grow not for the withstanding beauty but the sad trance of time that is slowly slipping away. Slowly leaving him. And he is to afraid to miss it. Because even though he is a slave to time, time will always be his friend. Time is the thing that will both destroy and lengthen his stay on this world.

"I think about time to," Ivan whispers voice thin and low one day, and Yao wishes he could help and whisper sweet nothings to him but his mind is focused on planning and writing and _remembering_.

So, he stays silent and Ivan pours down his worries that lilt and harbour steady calmness. Like a gentle crescendo they sigh together, day after day, and soon Yao stops writing and simply relies on Ivan's steady voice to remind him of things that even Ivan forgets. They forget and remember and they write together, they dream and hope and they despair together. They despair so much, but Yao thinks it's okay because they are together.

The fact that they remember each other is in every sense a miracle.

And through it all he watches the buds of spring grow and grow until they are no more then buds but soft petals that unroll easily and fruitlessly.

A fruitless love that will be forgotten, he thinks sadly and he all to lovingly welcomes the bitter sweet condolences through the other end. Although the bitterness is simply his mind because the words that linger are in reality to sweet, to kind, to unrealistic in his graying life.

And so, the flowers bloom and the days pass, and they count the seconds of every breath and every heartbeat.

Hoping that somehow, they will remember.

* * *

 _Gray is the ink you write with, gray is the smile you paint, gray, gray, gray…_


	4. 004- April

April

004

 _It rains and you are thankful because it hides the tears that make you blind to the blossoms and fruits that are nearly ripe and ready…_

"We are definitely not forgetting!"

 _ **Again, with this madness, again with these lies.**_

They pass by flowers and Ivan can't help but notice how they are growing, _mutating_ into superior forms of petals and fruits. It is beautiful, he notes, and it is so, so, so, cruel he thinks again, subconsciously trailing behind the crowd. It is ugly as it is pretty and he suddenly realizes he is _gripping_ the petals of Peonies and Lily's. He is _gripping_ them too hard, _clenching_ them too hard, ripping them of there beautiful petals all _too_ hard, but still, he _lovingly_ watches them as they shudder in the wind, _lovingly_ feeling his pain, _lovingly_ feeling his wrath, _lovingly_ watches them die as there stems thin and their petals take their final breaths.

Maybe the ticking time-bomb in his chest is making him mad, he smiles sadly—madly, crazily.

But he lovingly—so _**lovingly**_ of course, embraces this madness.

Yao would be sad to see such life wasted, he tastes bitter and the metal of irony so well, but he is not here with them in this moment so he lets out his anger because the older man can't handle it like the flowers do.

No, Yao is to frail and to sensitive. He wilts and blooms so much like these buds of spring. He continues grinding the flowers into thin strands of petal and leaf. Fragile, so so _fragile_.

"My _god_ , Alfred, do not let these doctors manipulate you with these frivolous things! You forget things because you are a natural klutz! Don't label it as these bastards do!"

He stops and listens. The flowers wilt and wither out of his hands, he may be mad, he thinks, but if he is crazy, then Arthur is out of his mind.

But Arthur is some other form of crazy, some other form of mad. He can't find the right word but delusional and liar. A man so full of pride and dignity.

Arthur is a fake.

He walks closer to the two blonds. Head lowered, guilt crashing him in waves. He's certain Peonies were Yao's favourite kind of flower. How could he have forgotten? Then again, everything is getting blurry, everything is getting washed away.

"But Artie! I don't remember my favourite restaurant and I _love_ food!," he hears from a distance a terribly loud voice.

Alfred pouts childishly, and Arthur believes that it's cute if not for the fact that he doesn't know how to wittily answer the latter's comment. He look's astray, searching for a way out. He is not wrong, he thinks, and it is true. _He_ hasn't forgotten much.

"Ivan! God bless you, tell me, have you forgotten anything as of yet?"

Ivan opens his mouth to reply that he indeed has forgotten things such as the fading colours of reds and the swirl of blacks that he doesn't remember clear enough to his liking but Arthur beats him to it.

"See Alfred? Nothing to be afraid of."

But there _is_ something to be afraid of. There _is_ something to beware.

It's strange, Ivan thinks, and ugly. He doesn't know how or why but it's strange to him as it feels foreign. There's something horrible about Arthur's smile—yes, the smile is a peculiar one. It tilts and it widens as it covers up truths and realities, the angle in which it presses on his lips look off and terrible. He shivers as the smile, that horrible smile and it's eyes gloss over him. He can't help but feel the foreignness of the smile remind him of his own.

His smile. _His_ peculiar, tight, crazy smile.

He wonders what kind of face he has on.

He needs to call Yao.

Yet, he restrains himself, because he does not want to taint that pure, gentle and steady voice. He does not want to manipulate like Arthur. He does not want to kill Yao like the Peonies he loves. Instead he wants to own them, to caress the tear stained cheeks, to love and worship and _break_ to his hearts content.

He likes ruin, he likes madness, he likes _crazy_.

There's something horrible about this kind of love. About this kind of obsession and infatuation. He knows this but he does not care. This is love sickness and like everything in life he welcomes it warmly in his existence.

 _He does this all for Yao, all for Yao, all for Yao._

 ** _His love is enough to push him past the brink._**

"They are lying." Arthur says again, and suddenly it feels as if some kind of bullet has just blown through him because he feels and tastes the metal of bullets and he feels the rage and anger of blood fuel him. He is tired of Arthur being so blind. He is tired of forgetting. He is tired of _remembering_. And maybe that's what pushes him so far.

He is just so tired. So crazy. So sad. He is so jealous of _life_ , and so mad at _Death_ because it won't just _take_ him.

"Stop playing the fool Arthur," he say's, and he doesn't recognize his voice under the emotion. Green eyes turn livid and blue watch in silence. Silence dances around him, he doesn't know why it's suddenly so loud.

"What…what in the world do you mean?"

"Stop, _da_? You are not an idiot. You are no Doctor."

There is stillness in the April night. A horrible stillness and it brings some other kind of sickness to the lush scenery. He feels his eyes strain in the night.

"I may be no Doctor but I know what I am—"

"You are forgetting," Ivan urges, and he steps closer while the other backs away. "You are forgetting and it's a horrible process. But soon you will forget everything and it will all be o—"

"Nonsense!" Arthur shakes his head, eyes so green, so powerfully in denial. Ivan thinks its funny, Ivan thinks it's stupid. Alfred watches in amazement. He does not know what to think. It is a clash of both violet, green, and blue within the sky. The sky that watches and spins, and it will continue spinning until both him and his sunflowers finally touch the peace of sleep.

He's tired, exhausted, he's at his limit.

But theres always something that stops him, stops him from going too far, something that makes him pause. Something old and new that flickers in him, something like a washed away dream still lingering.

 _Yao_.

"Nyet, nyet, you are forgetting," and Ivan laughs, he chuckles, but there's a certain depth to the low rumble, intervals of sanity washed away by reality and time. He is amused as he is tired but he has fun watching the frown deepen. There is a beautiful madness to what he is doing. For he is telling the truth. He is a truth seeker within all these lies. For the truth hurts while lies sooth, life is a beautiful lie while death is the painful truth.

But he knows that to be wrong because life is cruel, ugly, and holds monsters that can kill you. He knows, and yet he still believes that life is something blessed, something worthy. He hopes.

Yao and sunflowers are more then enough proof.

"Do you know what day it is?" He asks, and he waits. Smiling.

"April twenty th—"

" _Wrong_."

"April eleventh—"

" _Nyet_!" Ivan walks closer still, he is the truth teller while the other remains blind. He is so sick of it, so sick of them.

"You are forgetti—"

"Stop!" Arthur cries out, perhaps those are tears in his eyes but Ivan does not care.

"Stop, just _stop_!" He cries again, and Alfred sees the tears, sees the shock and the realization. His fists clench and curl, but he does not intervene.

"Da. _Cry_. And remember, remember that you are forgetting, and that it is painful."

"No, no…"

"You, Arthur Kirkland, are not subjected to telling us that we aren't forgetting when you can't even remember the date. Stop lying to yourself," Ivan looks pained and Alfred only clenches his fists harder. There is a kind of realization that flickers and fades like candles within green eyes.

Burning, _burning_ , slowly, _slowly_. Like _love_ like _hate_ like _disgust_.

Good, he thinks. _Good_.

"Cry. Let it all out." And Ivan chokes out a broken sound. And maybe it all ends there. The truth is out, the pain has already ebbed and eaten him away, and suddenly he realizes how much he loves life. How there is still so much he needs to do, so much he needs to learn and love and hate, and he can do all this if only he had more time. _Time. He doesn't have time._

"Arthur. Stop hurting yourself." He closes his eyes, hearing broken sobs and cries, all muffled by fabric and Alfred's strong grip.

"There was a better way to do that, _Ivan_ ," Alfred spits out, he ushers the older man to stop crying. Shoulders tremble and the April night is still so pretty and undeniably fresh in the tears. The air basks in the salt that Arthur adds to the Lily scent.

"Da. I know." A nod, a smile, a frown, and a walk that ventures further away from the two. He walks and he feels like running but he walks steadily, calmly and that's what makes him so crazy. So perfectly out of his mind in all this madness.

He gets his phone out, already dialling the older mans number, a yearning and anticipation makes him smile. His heart beat quickens and falls. His neck _itches_.

"你好, Yiwan?"

[Hello]

He grins in spite of the harsh frown, "Da, hello Yao,"

And then there is a silence and he say's, "I killed Peonies today…"

And Yao lovingly, so _lovingly_ of course, laughs.

 _Lovingly, lovingly, we fall, lovingly, lovingly we break._


	5. 005- May

**May  
005**

 _The heat is blinding, growing, **mutating** into flames that burn, that destroy, that peel away reality, slowly, **slowly,** it rains **ash**_

* * *

He sings. It is a beautifully melody to Ivan ears, it is a tale about numbers, incoherent language he does not understand and so he listens, carefully, as he recounts everything through the thin stream of electricity. The flowers are at last open and the aroma of sunflower and lavender is at its finest, so permanent that he's certain it sticks to him, follows him, and distinct him in a way only a _Braginski_ can.

"And I told him that he was not a Doctor, and therefore did not have the requirements or rights to tell me I was not forgetting."

Yao laughs, and the melody of binary and infinity stop. He breaths in, listening into the cell line that connects the two. He hears static, the static burns cold and it scares him so he digs the phone closer to his ears. Like a man blind of all senses he listens eagerly, like a _blind_ man, he thinks humourlessly, but if he is blind then it is of love and desire and the _eagerness_ of possession.

He accepts love as some other kind of disease. Chronic, incurable, deadly. Its fine, he was already sick to begin with.

"You are too impulsive," Yao finally whispers softly, humming whatever melody he can cling onto, "and childish."

Numbers continue soft, gradual hesitation. Ivan's been counting which numbers Yao stops at, sixty-nine and ninety-nine and eighty-two, all of which he cannot remember in the language that is foreign to him. But the imperfection makes him smile fondly, he never liked perfect people. The imperfection makes him feel better, more _connected_ to it all. The craziness of forgetting is imperfect as well.

"Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-" a pause in between the silence, "fifty... _fifty_ -" There is a quiet yet subtle whimper, a sigh of despair, disappointment, and longing. All of which is lessened by the giggle and the erratic flow of laughter and sobs.

And so Ivan listens, watchful in the way that he can imagine the tears, the smell and stench of salt and remorse. Yao is so fragile, he thinks again, and small and sweet. He is so full of a dying life and that thought makes his blood go cold. _No_ , Ivan thinks, Yao isn't dying, Yao _cannot_ die.

"What happens next, Yiwan?", a distracted soft voice asks. Yao's table is a mess of paper and ink. Black and white so bright against soft wood. He is relieved that Ivan cannot see, he does not want Ivan to see his own kind of crazy.

"Nothing," Ivan replies gently, he hears a shift of fabric, "I called you after, do you remember that night, Jao?"

A pause, a long pause, an eternity, his heart beat quickens and falls, " _Ahhh_ yes, _yes_ , you killed a Peony! What a shame!"

Yao is not dying.

Yao will always remember. Yao will remember him, won't he?

"Why are you telling me this now, Yiwan? Hasn't it been a while..." A mutter in a different language, a rustle of paper can be heard, and Ivan strains to listen. He's too preoccupied with the musical sound of glass. "A month, it's been a month."

Ivan doesn't know what to say so he stays quiet. His mouth moves before he thinks, maybe it's the vodka that he's realized he can't stop drinking. He rolls his tongue within his mouth, alcohol and iron so strong. The ice cubes clink gently against sides of the shot glass.

Copper, he tastes copper.

Bitterness has never tasted so wonderfully sweet before.

"Will you forget me, my little Yao Yao?" He say's bitterly, he feels angered that Yao could forget him when he loves Yao so much. He stares at his sunflowers, they are so big and wide, and the smell is calming like an aphrodisiac of a special kind, of a _beautiful_ kind.

He waits, and once again it's like an eternity of seconds, of minutes of _time_ that flows silently. Yao's voice cuts sharp, cold like a knife of red. Red is dangerous, and beautiful, and enticing.

Yao is _red_.

He is painful to see, to feel, to love. He is passion with intervals of sorrow; he is roses with thorns and blood. He is so much and so little. He is Ivan's and Ivan is his.

"Yiwan," he finally says, "come here."

He does not understand at first what this means but when he does he does not stop to wait. Instead, he pursues.

In a half drunken stupor he trips over clothes and bottles of vodka, his mind unfocused but his hammering heart reminds him to run. His vision blurs of diluted vodka but he makes it out the door all the same. And when he does, he searches for signs of Yao, things he remembers between all the buildings and cafes and shops. Everything is a blur and his watch counts the seconds, the seconds it takes to have Yao in his arms. They are only seconds but it is far too long, Ivan thinks.

He does not stop until he is in front of a small door he knows belongs to Yao. He remembers this neighbourhood because he's walked here with Yao thousands of time; he reaches for the handle only to find it open. Whether it's open for him or strangers he does not know.

He breaths in before pushing the door open, and he is then suddenly, beautifully, overtaken— _consumed_ by red. He feels eaten alive by the sheer irony of it all, it feels strangely foreign and exotic if not the fact that he's known the colour in the most intimate way. Blood, roses, _Yao_ , _Yao_ , _**Yao**_.

There is red and black and white that swirl in wood, in paintings, in patterns, and sketches. But he realizes there is purple. Trails of purple moor that intertwine with red, there are different shades, amethyst that burns gold in paintings of a human kind, of patterns and ink that are stained with purple finger tips. His eyes trail slowly to the core of this beautiful messy room. Organized chaos makes his blood boil.

It's crazy, he thinks, how such a mess is so beautiful. But all the while he reminds himself he is sick with love so it makes more sense, calms him with newfound understanding.

His breath gets caught because in the middle of this mess a man sits. Hollow red and black, a blur so transfixing and so gorgeously tainted in the way black hair travels down white. He sees the purple finger tips and the paintbrush of violet, so foreign on his skin, so dangerously vivid on hollow cheeks and gold. So innocently _pretty_.

Only then does he realize. He steps closer, cautiously because he is too scared to break this moment of perfection. It is him in every piece of parchments, it is his _eyes_ , and _face_ , and _mouth_. There are words too; dialogue of what he recalls faintly telling the older man.

Yao is trying to remember. Yao is trying so hard to remember him.

 _His existence._

Some could think it is crazy, some could perhaps see the taint of such love but Ivan does not see it. He is already so infatuated by this beautiful, gorgeous red and violet cacophony. He is too lost to settle for less, too lost to settle for organization and cleanliness and _order._ He wants this, this transfixing monstrous mess.

 _"Ivan."_ Yao says, and despite the room there is nothing but sanity and love grounded within gold, and so he feels tears despite the heartache, the headache, the _ache_ of his body.

He's not crazy or mad, he's just love sick. _Sick_ because of love. He blames his vulnerability on love but he knows that in reality he's just lonely, and his love is very pure. His pure love is too vulnerable to the harsh heat of summer, too weak for this cruel reality.

"How could I ever forget you?"

* * *

It is hot in the dead summer so Ivan and Yao dance and laugh and sing together. They sing about numbers and memory and this time when Yao is unable to remember, Ivan fills the numbers in with his own tongue.

Together, they think. Smiles with tear stained cheeks are all to contradictory and bleak in the mesh of blood red and violet.

Together, they think again, and they smile at the sheer irony of it all.

They believe they will die of love sickness before there memory takes them.

The illusion is strong, it pushes and holds, and slowly, _slowly_ , ever so _slowly_ it lowers the victim in a blanket of warmth and love... _the joy that kills._


End file.
